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\n Allan Langer is a mentor for Sam Walker, who lived up to comparisons with the Maroons great in his Origin debut.
\n \u00a9Grant Trouville\/NRL Photos
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Maroons great Allan Langer believes rookie halfback Sam Walker has a long Origin career ahead of him after being arguably Queensland\u2019s best player on debut in Wednesday night\u2019s gut wrenching 22-20 loss.<\/p>\n
Walker has often been likened to Langer because of his diminutive size and playing style, and he lived up to those comparisons by laying on the first two tries as Queensland raced to an early 20-0 lead.<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old set up Queensland\u2019s first points with a deft grubber through a hole in the defensive line for his centre Robert Toia to pounce on with the game just nine minutes old.<\/p>\n
Four minutes later and he was at it again with a short pass to put prop Tom Fleger on a trajectory to the try line.<\/p>\n
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Walker shines on debut<\/p>\n
He also didn\u2019t miss a goal with three conversions and a penalty all raising the flags.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great debut and he\u2019s just shown that he’s up to Origin level, which is good,\u201d Langer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got Tommy Dearden injured, which is sad, and it doesn\u2019t look like he will play in this series but we know that Sammy can do the job.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s got a great short kicking game, and I know he works hard on his long kicking game as well. He’s only at the start of his career, so he’s got a big future ahead of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Langer, who represented Queensland in 34 Origins from 1987 to 2002, played with Walker\u2019s father Ben and uncles Chris and Shane at the Broncos and has known Leeds-born Sam since he was young.<\/p>\n
A stalwart of Maroons camps as a player and staff member, Langer was the ideal mentor for Walker before his debut at Accor Stadium.<\/p>\n
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\n Allan Langer is a mentor for Sam Walker, who lived up to comparisons with the Maroons great in his Origin debut.
\n \u00a9Grant Trouville\/NRL Photos
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\u201cI love him,” Langer said. “I played with his dad and his uncles, and they are a great family. His grandparents are here too and they’re such a lovely family, so it\u2019s great to see him do so well.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s from Ipswich and he played at my junior club (Norths Tigers). His mum used to serve in the canteen, and he’s got such a good family behind him as well.<\/p>\n
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I just said to play his own game and enjoy himself. He doesn’t stress out too much about things and I just think he did his job so well.<\/p>\n
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“He\u2019s got a good level head on his shoulders and that\u2019s the way he plays. He does it every weekend in the NRL, so when you get to this level you improve, certainly with the players around him and it just gives him more confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Every Allan Langer State of Origin try<\/p>\n
As State of Origin debuts go, it was a bobby-dazzler.<\/p>\n
Yet Walker cut a forlorn figure in the Maroons sheds post-match.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s obviously disappointing. I haven\u2019t had too much time to reflect on it so I haven\u2019t got much to say,\u201d Walker said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just footy – I\u2019ve done it a thousand times and I love what I do.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty big occasion and I loved every minute of it – it\u2019s been an awesome week. It\u2019s unfortunate we couldn\u2019t finish it off.<\/p>\n
Walker did his best to get the win with those two try assists, a line-break assist, a forced dropout, a dummy-half run breaking two tackles and 16 kicks for 462 metres.<\/p>\n
While the young Roosters half thought it was nothing special, Queensland coach Billy Slater had other thoughts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought he was great. The longer the week (in camp) went on, the more I felt really confident that he\u2019d play like that,\u201d Slater said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a clever little player \u2013 he\u2019s tough. He dives into the team things and then he brings his game and unlocks players.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw that (Wednesday night) so I\u2019m looking forward to him getting some more opportunities and playing some more footy at this level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walker posed a threat every time he touched the ball, especially his trademark kicking game.<\/p>\n
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From the field: Sam Walker<\/p>\n
\u201cI just had a lot of belief. The coaching staff knew I would just go out there and play by game, back what I see. They instil that confidence in me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t going out there thinking of early kicks. I was just thinking about doing my best for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a little weirdness playing against his club captain James Tedesco as the pair feed off each other so well for the Roosters.<\/p>\n
\u201cPretty much just forget who\u2019s wearing that jersey. It was a little different during the week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re out there in footy you play against teammates you used to have all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conspiracy theorists felt Tedesco would tip-up the Blues team on Walker\u2019s tactics and moves.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what I\u2019m going to do (in a game) so I don\u2019t know how he\u2019s going to know,\u201d Walker said.<\/p>\n
The game turned with the Kalyn Ponga send-off in the 57th minute with Queensland leading 20-6.<\/p>\n
Walker was the first man in the tackle on NSW winger Tolu Koula, with Ponga coming in over the top.<\/p>\n
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Ponga sent off<\/p>\n
\u201cI sort of went low so I didn\u2019t see what happened. Things like that happen in footy. There\u2019s no point looking back on it now \u2013 just focus what\u2019s ahead of us,” he said.<\/p>\n
But it did make the final 23 minutes extra stressful defending a man down and watching the Blues pile on three tries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole game is hard whether there\u2019s 12 or 13. I\u2019m really proud to be a Queenslander,\u201d Walker said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe showed up, we fought, we didn\u2019t make excuses, and we almost got it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maroons great Allan Langer believes rookie halfback Sam Walker has a long Origin career ahead of him after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-449191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}